The White Horse Bookshop in Marlborough has become the first sponsor of
the Richard Jefferies Society Writers' Prize for Outstanding Nature Writing,
immediately doubling the amount the winning author will receive (bringing the total prize to £1,000). Named after
the celebrated and ground-breaking Victorian writer and naturalist, the Prize
was first awarded in March of this year to John Lister-Kaye for Gods of the Morning
(Canongate). Submissions are now being accepted for the second Prize, which
will be announced in Spring of 2017. The closing date is 31st December 2016.

Angus MacLennan, General Manager of the White Horse Bookshop, said:
"It is obvious from the breadth and quality of publishing I see
represented on our shelves every day that we are in a golden age of nature
writing. This, coupled with our location at the foot of the Marlborough Downs,
an area Richard Jefferies wrote about, made sponsoring the Prize a very easy
decision." The winner of the second Richard Jefferies Society Writers'
Prize will be announced at a ceremony in the 73-year-old bookshop's new events
room in Spring next year.

John Price, Chairman of the Richard Jefferies Society, said: "We
are thrilled to have found such a perfect sponsor so soon in the Prize's life –
it seems, fittingly, to be a very natural evolution. Richard Jefferies was a
Wiltshire man and would have known the area well – I am sure he would
thoroughly approve of our new sponsor and of the shop's support of nature
writing and writers."

The Prize is open to nature writing of any length or in any format that
is broadly consistent with the work of Richard Jefferies. Submissions may
include first English translations and all entries must have been published,
for the first time, within the calendar year. MacLennan will join members of
the Richard Jefferies Society council in selecting a shortlist which will be
announced in early 2017, followed by the winner in early Spring.

(John) Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) is best known for his prolific and
sensitive writing on natural history, rural life and agriculture in late
Victorian England. Less well-known now than he deserves to be, Jefferies stands
in tradition of writers concerned with man's relationship to the natural world
– a forerunner of today's abundance of nature writing. Perhaps his best-known
works today are Bevis (sometimes described as an English Huckleberry Finn),
Round About a Great Estate, and After London, one of the earliest works of
'post-apocalyptic' fiction.

John Webb, one of the Richard Jefferies Society's most active members,
died in 2014. He left the Society a legacy that will be used as a memorial to
him: The Richard Jefferies Society Writers' Prize commenced in 2015. The
inaugural winner was John Lister-Kaye for Gods of the Morning (Canongate).

The White Horse Bookshop first opened its doors in 1943 and has stood on
its present site - a 16th century townhouse in Marlborough, Wiltshire - since
1949. It was bought in 2014 by local businessmen Robert Hiscox (founder of
Hiscox insurance) and Brian Kingham (founder of Reliance Securities Group).
http://www.whitehorsebooks.co.uk/

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Peter
Bainbridge is organising a guided walk around the John Moore Museum, the
Merchant’s House, the Old Baptist Chapel and to places associated with Moore in
Tewkesbury along with a talk about John Moore. The charge will be £8.00 per person. The Museum is closed between 1-2pm.

Simon Lawton, the Curator, has suggested that he
gives his talk about John Moore first and that would take place in the Chapel.
There will be time to visit other places of interest in Tewkesbury and take
lunch there. Allow for a 4pm finish.

For more information email Pete on treasurer@richardjefferiessociety.co.uk

The John Moore Museum is nestled in a row of
historic timber-framed buildings close to the Abbey in Tewkesbury. The museum
was established in 1980 in memory of the writer and naturalist John Moore.
Today it is also home to an extensive Natural History collection featuring specimens
of mammals and birds native to the British countryside, woodlands, wetlands and
farmland. A few doors away is The Merchant’s House, a two storey building which
has been restored and furnished to show the construction of a 15th century shop
and dwelling. The museum has also recently taken over the management of the Old
Baptist Chapel, originally a late Medieval Hall house which was later converted
for use as a non-conformist meeting house, that will be open to the public
after May this year.

The study
day this year will be based around a workshop to map connections between
Jefferies’ works and our own knowledge and understanding of the things he is
writing about. In preparation please look again at one of your favourite works
and bookmark some of the connections that you make with the content. For
example, when I read Wild Life in a
Southern County, I mark things that connect with what we now know about
ecology, a branch of biology that was in its infancy in Jefferies’ day. I am
also interested in the survival of some of the countryside occupations and
traditions he writes about, or how land-use has changed, or how his
descriptions of country life in the Vale of White Horse compare with those of
Alfred Williams. During the study day we will work in small groups and write
our connections on large sheets of paper and then ‘map’ connections to
connections and build up a ‘knowledge network’. This is a good way to
share knowledge in a convivial social setting.

Friday, March 25, 2016

Ben Tubbs
AdventuresisRichard Jefferies’ earliest extant work of any
length, probably written in his late teens. It is a quest novel of voyage
and adventure, and his first essay in a genre to which he was naturally drawn.
It was probably influenced by the greatest quest story of them all, Homer’sOdyssey, one of Jefferies’ favourite books as a boy.

It is likely
that Jefferies wrote it for his personal amusement and the entertainment of
family and friends. For students of Jefferies, the novel is of interest.

The humour
and Ben’s pranks in the early chapters of the book are juvenile and immature
but fitting for a boy’s story. The descriptions of the slaves on the
slave-ships are racist in the extreme and painful to read. However the later
chapters, that treat Ben’s adventures in America, show some sparks of
Jefferies’ real writing talent. He describes the prairies with great
sensitivity.

The book is
published for the first time (April 2016), in paperback (200pp)and is available
through the Richard Jefferies Society at a cost of £8 plus postage (rrp £12).
Go to:

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Sir
John Lister-Kaye has been awarded the inaugural Writers’ Prize by the Richard
Jefferies Society for Gods of the Morning,
his critically acclaimed celebration of a natural year through the lives of
British birds. His ninth book, it will be released in paperback this week.

The
Richard Jefferies Society was founded to commemorate Richard Jefferies, a
Victorian writer best known for his groundbreaking work on natural history,
rural life and agriculture. The Society’s Writers’ Prize, founded in memory of John
Webb – lifelong lover of Jefferies’ writing, commenced in 2015, with the prize
of £500 awarded for any length or format of writing on themes or topics broadly
consistent with Jefferies’ writing. Also shortlisted for the prize in 2015 were
Common Ground by Rob Cowen and The Moth Snowstorm by Michael McCarthy.

Gods of the Morning follows a year through the turning of the
seasons, exploring the habits of the Highland animals, and in particular the
birds – Lister-Kaye’s gods of the morning, for whom he has nourished a lifelong
passion. It is an affectionate and wise celebration of the British landscape
and the birds that come and go through the year, a lyrical reminder of the
relationship we have lost with the seasons and a call to look afresh at the
natural world around us.

Published
in hardback last year, it has received praise from critics and writers across
the industry including Helen MacDonald, Mark Cocker, Patrick Barkham and Chris
Packham, widespread glowing reviews, and was selected as the Waterstones
Scottish Book of the Month.

Lister-Kaye
commented: ‘I am delighted to receive this award, particularly since I have
been an enthusiast for Richard Jefferies’ nature writing for many years. His contribution to the genre and to the
general appreciation of our wildlife and countryside is immense, so I am very
proud to be the inaugural winner of this important prize.’

John Price, the Society’s Chairman, added: ‘Gods
of the Morning is a book by a man who is as familiar with his local Scottish
wildlife and countryside as Richard Jefferies had been with his Wiltshire local
environment; and both authors also had the ability to describe some of the
local human population in deft terms. An outstanding first winner of the
Richard Jefferies Society Writers' Prize, Lister-Kaye is able to convey the
joy of nature in an uncomplicated and eloquent fashion.’

Sir
John Lister-Kaye is one of Britain's best-known naturalists and conservationists.
He is the author of nine books on wildlife and the environment, including At
the Water's Edge, and has lectured all over the world. He has served
prominently in the RSPB, the Nature Conservancy Council, Scottish Natural
Heritage and the Scottish Wildlife Trust. In 2003 he was awarded an OBE for
services to nature conservation. He lives with his wife and family among the
mountains of the Scottish Highlands, where he runs the world-famous Aigas Field
Centre.

Friday, February 12, 2016

On
Saturday 5th March, members of the Richard Jefferies Society and the Friends of
Alfred Williams will be getting together to share readings by and about both
writers. The gathering will be held at the Richard Jefferies Museum, Marlborough Road, Coate, Swindon SN3 6AA starting at
2.00pm. The meeting is open to the general public and free to attend. Do come
along if you can.

Monday, February 08, 2016

The Farmer’s World (Petton Books, Feb. 2016)is now available. The
book comprises all the articles (nearly 90) by Jefferies published in The Live Stock Journal and Fancier's Gazette in the late 1870s, along with a masterly introduction
by Professor Eric Jones.

The articles are forthright, almost
campaigning, often urging readers to reconsider their conservative ways, to be
innovative, to seek commercial opportunities and to tackle waste. ‘Middlemen’
were regularly disparaged, traditional methods of distribution questioned and
imaginative schemes suggested to bring producer and consumer closer together. Jefferies also displayed a
surprising ability in figures and a good grasp of mechanical engineering,
explaining with clarity the workings of newly invented farming machinery. The
essays collected here demonstrate Jefferies’ expertise in trade-paper
journalism and contrast sharply with his later, lyrical work. He was a
modernist of his time, and declares: ‘agriculture has become far too wide for
the brain of any one man’.